<p>I'm having a hard time getting a good list of schools that I want to apply to. I'll probably try for all BUT the top tier UCs (athough with my grades, alot of them'll be reaches). But I'd like to apply to some out of state too. I know some of you probably just took the top 20 on the US news rankings and did that cause you can. But how are you supposed to go about looking at schools that won't pop up in a google search for "best <em>enter major here</em> college". </p>
<p>What made you guys choose those schools that you did?</p>
<p>I'm thinking maybe just being a biology major, since it'll give me the most flexibility as it comes to graduate studies. But I KNOW what the top bio schools are in teh country, and I know what the next teir is. But I won't be able to get into those. If I don't make it into a UC, I'd probably want to go out of state, since I don't want to go to a CSU (or are CA's CSUs better than other state's State Unis?)</p>
<p>My advice would be to start off by visiting various colleges in your area. Get a variety- big, small, public, private, artsy, athletic. Once you've visited a couple, you'll start to figure out exactly what you want in a college. Many people think they want a college larger than their high school, only to realize their freshman year that they would've thrived in a smaller environment (or vice versa).</p>
<p>Once you have an idea of what characteristics you want in a college (size, location, extracurriculars, housing, cost, etc.), you can begin to formulate a tentative list. College search engines are great for this.</p>
<p>After you have a list, you have the hard task of narrowing it down. Visit their websites, including blogs and discussion boards if they have them. Order course catalogues or DVDs/CDs, if available. Contact alumni in your area. Visit in person and stay overnight, or try to attend an information session in your area. Contact admissions to see if they can put you in touch with current students.</p>
<p>Incidentally, there are some amazing biology programs at schools that aren't extremely selective. The College of the Atlantic has arguably the best undergraduate marine biology program in the country, for example, and UC Boulder has an excellent program in molecular biology.</p>
<p>Wow thank you, very informative and helpful. I see, so what i look for in setting is what I"m supposed to consider before the school itself so I can eliminate.</p>
<p>And just for future references, how did you find out that College of the Atlantic has a great marine biology program? I think that'd be interesting to know, in case i want to find other majors at other schools.</p>
<p>It wasn't intentional- COA sent me a flyer in the mail, and I looked it up online. </p>
<p>If you stick around CC long enough, you'll start to pick up tidbits like majors and schools (Swarthmore & astronomy, Bowdoin & Arctic studies, Williams & art history, Emerson & communication, etc.).</p>
<p>-Using US News or another source, identify the schools where you are within the 25-75 %ile based on standardized test scores.</p>
<p>-Decide what kind of environment you want : school size/type, surrounding community size/type, location, weather, prevailing campus culture, proximity to your home,etc. Any factor of living/learning that is of some importance to you and upon which one can differentiate. Categorize using the guide books; prune list accordingly.</p>
<ul>
<li>Use Rugg's recommendations on the Colleges, or any other source that may be applicable, to get a feel for which departments students at that college think are relatively strong there.. Prune list according to match between strong departments and your likely interests.</li>
</ul>
<p>-Read up on the remaining schools, and prioritize based on what feels good.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>inspect course catalogs and class schedules of finalists to see how many offerings are given in your fields of likely interest.(particularly important for LACs)</p></li>
<li><p>At some point, visit the candidate colleges to confirm your book-research.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>monydad, that is very good and commonsensical advice. I myself prefer the more detailed approach, which I gave in a big post on a recent thread. To determine what you want, you should consider who you are and what you want to get out of college. Also, to add to monydad's list, look at the school websites, talk to current students there, try to talk to admissions officers, in other words find out as much about the school as you possibly can. </p>
<p>To GlueEater: It is very possible that you'll change majors in college, which is, I think, a good thing, because it shows that the college is exposing you to new things that you haven't considered to be interesting beforehand. That's a characteristic of a good college. Have around two majors you're interested in and find out more about those in the schools, but, to quote Fred Hargadon, former dean of admissions at Princeton, "focus at least as much attention on the overall quality of a college as on the quality of the particular department or academic area in which you may now be especially interested." This advice is based on lots of past experiences.</p>
<p>Have you tried PrincetonReview.com? If you use their Counselor-o-Matic feature, you can input your criteria (geographic, social, school size, etc) and it will come up with a list of matches. Beware, though, because we've found that their categories of Reach, Good Match, and Safety are not reasonable - many of their 'Good Matches' would in reality be Reaches for my son. It's still helpful in creating a list.</p>